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Panic on the Streets of London: Police, Crime and the July 2005 Terror Attacks

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Author Info
Mirko Draca
Stephen Machin
Robert Witt

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Abstract

In this paper we study the causal impact of police on crime by looking at what happened to crime before and after the terror attacks that hit central London in July 2005. The attacks resulted in a large redeployment of police officers to central London boroughs as compared to outer London - in fact, police deployment in central London increased by over 30 percent in the six weeks following the July 7 bombings. During this time crime fell significantly in central relative to outer London. Study of the timing of the crime reductions and their magnitude, the types of crime which were more likely to be affected and a series of robustness tests looking at possible biases all make us confident that our research approach identifies a causal impact of police on crime. Implementing an instrumental variable approach shows an elasticity of crime with respect to police approximately -0.3, so that a 10 percent increase in police activity reduces crime by around 3 percent.

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Paper provided by Centre for Economic Performance, LSE in its series CEP Discussion Papers with number dp0852.

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Date of creation: Feb 2008
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Handle: RePEc:cep:cepdps:dp0852

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Related research
Keywords: crime; police; terror attacks;

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
H00 - Public Economics - - General - - - General
H5 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies
K42 - Law and Economics - - Legal Procedure, the Legal System, and Illegal Behavior - - - Illegal Behavior and the Enforcement of Law

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  1. Levitt, Steven D, 1997. "Using Electoral Cycles in Police Hiring to Estimate the Effect of Police on Crime," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 87(3), pages 270-90, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  2. Nicholas Bloom, 2007. "The Impact of Uncertainty Shocks," NBER Working Papers 13385, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  3. Steven D. Levitt, 2002. "Using Electoral Cycles in Police Hiring to Estimate the Effects of Police on Crime: Reply," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(4), pages 1244-1250, September. [Downloadable!]
  4. Freeman, Richard B., 1999. "The economics of crime," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 52, pages 3529-3571 Elsevier. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  5. Machin, Steve & Marie, Olivier, 2005. "Crime and Police Resources: The Street Crime Initiative," CEPR Discussion Papers 5390, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  6. Gary S. Becker, 1968. "Crime and Punishment: An Economic Approach," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 76, pages 169. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  7. Marianne Bertrand & Esther Duflo & Sendhil Mullainathan, 2002. "How Much Should We Trust Differences-in-Differences Estimates?," NBER Working Papers 8841, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  8. Evans, William N. & Owens, Emily G., 2007. "COPS and crime," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(1-2), pages 181-201, February. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  9. Brian Jacob & Lars Lefgren & Enrico Moretti, 2007. "The Dynamics of Criminal Behavior: Evidence from Weather Shocks," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 42(3). [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  1. Gould, Eric D. & Stecklov, Guy, 2009. "Terror and the Costs of Crime," IZA Discussion Papers 4347, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA). [Downloadable!]
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